Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Splashdown

The clouds and rain rolled in. I’m guessing the umps had a fit of common sense and said to the managers, “Let’s call it a day.” And the managers agreed. After all, the Knights need to get up to Indianapolis for their playoff game on Wednesday. The Bulls? Well, the Bulls (most of them) just needed to go home.

We’ll spend the next few days trying to wrap up this season. Regarding these last two games, the kindest review would point out that Chris Archer had a good start on Sunday; that Josh Lueke dug himself an even bigger hole in losing Sunday’s game; and that Leslie Anderson simply didn’t have enough time to get the hits he needed to win the batting crown.

If we were looking for oddities (and we usually are) we’d note that in both games the Bulls outhit their opponents, but still lost. What could that mean? At a guess, the Knights were tuning up for the playoffs and the Bulls were not.

* * * * *

There was another oddity in this last game that creates a dilemma for Watching Durham Bulls Baseball. I need your opinion on an issue. The oddity was that Jim Peterson came into the game in relief and Robby Price started at second base.

Back when we set up the Moonlight Graham Award, given to the Durham Bull with the least amount of time in a Bulls uniform, we set up a fairly simple set of criteria excluding a few categories of players who come through that we didn’t think should be eligible for the award.

Not considered are players who come through on a rehab assignment, played only in postseason, and (for the pitcher) a position player thrown to the wolves at the end of a game.

Here’s my problem this year. We’ve got a pitcher and a position player who meet these criteria, and who are clearly the players with the least amount of time in a Bulls uniform, but we’ve never seen them (the aforementioned infielder Robby Price and pitcher Jim Patterson). They both played only at Knights Stadium, but they will not step onto the field at the DBAP. So, here’s my question:

Should we add playing at the DBAP as a criterion for eligibility of the Moonlight Graham Award?

Outside the game —

The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that Stephen Vogt and Dane De La Rosa are being called up and speculates that Chris Archer could be called up soon.

Bulls catcher Chris Gimenez hit two RBI yesterday to win the game for the Rays.

3 comments:

I'd like to see playing at the DBAP before September 1 as a criterion. Yes, the real Moonlight Graham did make his only big league appearance on the road - but he was with the New York Giants for at least a month before getting into that game at the end of June 1905, in cross-town Brooklyn. He wasn't a roster expansion player, or domino of such like the Bulls players called up from the Stone Crabs this September.

That said, Kiermaier, Price, and Patterson responded to those tough circumstances by playing high quality baseball as Durham Bulls. Price was at the DBAP for the last game but didn't play, Patterson I didn't see there.

If I stick with my original rules, the winners will have to be Price and Patterson. But have to say that I'm sure leaning towards Montgomery's Mayo Acosta (catcher) and Matt Buschmann who had a few PAs and innings and helped out mid-season. Acosta is now out with a broken ankle/foot, but Buschmann is scheduled to start in the Southern League playoffs.

Trivia: Price and Kiermaier went to Montgomery to play for the Biscuits in the playoffs.

A couple more pieces of trivia. Craig Albernaz went back to the Biscuits to replace Acosta. Craig pitched more Bulls innings than Patterson! If criteria was fewest total at bats and September players weren't considered, he would be second to Acosta.

Craig's contribution to the Bulls while he wasn't playing seemed large, I'll not be surprised if he's a coach or even manager some day.

Sean O'Malley is also a Biscuit now, a hot hitter during their last push to make the playoffs, above .300 in the last 10 games.

Unfortunately neither the Biscuits nor their opponents are members of the MILB.TV package, so I guess we won't get to see their playoffs.